With a sigh, Sherwood pulled out his notepad and pen again. “All right. I’ll have to wait until Miguel is outof surgery to ask him questions, but I can start with you right now. Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary lately? With Miguel, or at the ranch?”
Lennon.
It had only taken fifteen minutes to verify what my gut had been telling me all along: Lennon Graves had no business being at Mercy River Ranch. Nogoodbusiness, anyway. Shady business? Yeah, I could see more than one pathway that might have led her straight to our doorstep.
She wasn’t military or a first responder. She was a cam girl.
Her account had been paused a couple days before she landed in Wyoming and she hadn’t streamed since. But there were still photos of her up. Lingerie and a pot roast. Lingerie and a bouquet of flowers. Even with the black lace mask and blue contact lenses, I recognized her mouth and the shape of her jaw. It was her.
I hadn’t had time for more than a cursory glance into her subscribers before the sheriff showed up in my office. Going any deeper would require Mateo’s skills. Maybe he could determine if one of her subs had a link to the ranch.
But what the hell would any of this have to do with Miguel? I knew for damn sure Lennon was nowhere near this road Monday morning. The image of her was seared into my brain.
Even if I hadn’t been her alibi, I knew in my gut shewouldn’t knowingly have hurt another person. Not like that.
Maybe it was nothing more than a coincidence that Lennon was here at Mercy River under false pretenses at the same time Miguel was forced off the road.
But in my experience, too many coincidences weren’t a coincidence at all.
It was a trap.
THE GUARDIAN
Everyone was talking about it. Literally EVERYONE. If I heard one more word about Lennon and Jeremiah kissing outside Sundowner, I cannot be held responsible for my actions.
But at least they found Miguel. That’s good. I knew he’d be fine. I just hadn’t counted on the utter incompetence of everyone around me. I told them where to find him! Did they even bother to check? I doubted it. If you want something done, you had to do it yourself.
My mood sucked today. The old darkness threatened to pull me under. I haven’t felt this way since Lennon arrived at the ranch. She’s been the sunshine that let me blossom after a rough storm. But today I was shrinking in on myself again. My belly hurt.
Self-care. That was what I needed. An afternoon in bed with Skittles and Diet Coke, rewatching Lennon’svideos. We’re not supposed to record her or screenshot—it was against the terms of service—but I wasn’t not like her other viewers. I wouldn’t trust a single one of them as far as I could throw them. But I was different. I didn’t want to dox her or get myself off. There was something soothing about her. Her voice made me feel like everything was going to be okay. ThatIwas going to be okay.
Maybe because when I was in the hospital, she told me I’d be okay, and she was right. That was how we’d first found each other. My asshole nurse had thought I was asleep. He’d parked his ass right on the edge of my bed to watch her live video.
Fucking pervert.
I hadn’t been asleep. I’d watched the whole thing over his shoulder. Lennon had been dressed in a men’s white button-down which she’d tied in a knot at her waist to show her navel, a cherry red bra that matched her lipstick, a tiny pair of denim shorts that were so tight I feared for her clitoris, and a pair of wedge sandals. Her hair was up in some 1950s style and she wore a black lace mask over the top two thirds of her face. Bright blue eyes—which I now knew were colored contacts.
She arranged flowers into a bouquet as she talked to her viewers. She had a wicked sense of humor and I’d had to bite my lip more than once to keep from chortling out loud. But mostly what I noticed was howkind she was. She genuinely cared about these troglodytes watching her.
There was a little box at the top right corner that kept track of how much money people were tipping her. When it hit a certain amount, she took off her top. Money kept coming in, and she took off her shorts, leaving her in the red bra and matching thong. I didn’t know if she took off anything else, because that’s when the nurse took his phone with him into the bathroom. I could hear him beating himself off.
Men. The fuckingworst.
Something about her stuck with me. Not the nudity, although it was hard to believe a person that beautiful could actually exist in the world. The kindness. The humor. My world had turned gray, and she was the sun peaking through.
So I found her on the site, subscribed to her channel, and the next day she made a special point of thanking me for joining. She could only see my user name, of course, so she had no idea it wasme. She probably thought I was just another man, although now I knew she had female viewers too. When I thanked her for entertaining me through my hospital stay, she asked for the room number.
“You’re going to be okay,” she told me. “It’s going to get better for you. I can feel it.”
The next day, a bouquet of pink peonies were delivered. It had to be her.
It sure as hell wasn’t the ex-boyfriend who put me here.
I settled in with my candy, soda, and Lennon. It was one of my favorite videos because I was the first one on her channel, so I had her all to myself for five whole minutes before anyone else joined. She talked to me like I mattered, looking into the camera like she’s looking into my eyes. She laughed at the joke I typed into the chat box.
Watching her calmed me down. My universe was centered again. The scar didn’t feel so tight anymore.
Jeremiah was nothing more than a pleasant distraction. A fling. Can I really blame her, when she spent the last nine months with that old rich guy who probably couldn’t get it up for more than two minutes at a time? Sex was a natural, primal urge. She’ll fuck him and move on.
